Waiting For The Harvest

There are 3 Sanke at Nisei Koi Farm that I am anxious to see in person for the first time. One HenryC and DickB selected for me at the October 2005 harvest. [I can't post her photo here without deleting it from another thread. Maybe someone else could save and post it from the other thread?] The other two I selected, but only from photos...a couple of tosai growing out in one of Matt McCann's cattail sanctuaries. I think one is likely male, but I'm a sucker for a pretty face. The other is one I think has a fair chance of being a long term keeper. We'll see in about 6 weeks.

As I remember Henry had picked out a really cute showa at tosai and i was wondering how that will turn out as well. I know Dan and Sharon Olson have a fabulous Sanke and nice Kohaku at 3 and 4 years of age waiting to come out of the mud as well. I'm sure with Mike and Henry atleast the KB crowd will gets some decent photos to "oggle"

Dick: Henry has that soon-to-be nisai Showa he latched onto last October, and there is at least one tosai Kohaku he won at auction in June. And, I'm thinking there was another Kohaku he got at auction in May... might not remember that correctly. I've only seen pics of these. And it may seem kinda silly given the Sanke I have waiting for me, but I really want to see Yamabuki! My first koi was a Yamabuki and I've always had one until about 2 years ago when I lost mine. I've been waiting for the right one and it had to be female. Mat was going to supply her, but from last year's harvest there were none he was satisfied to supply. He made a Yamabuki X Yamabuki cross this Spring, so there should be a lot to choose from. Ready to try to pick the best likely female from a tank with maybe hundreds of shiny things? ...LOL I'm hoping I don't have to wait another year to find the gold.

Koiczar: Yep, Nisei Koi Farm is scheduled to be at both the Allentown show and the Sacramento show that weekend. That's before the harvest, so I'm not sure what you'll be seeing. Back about 4 years ago when their breeding program was just getting underway, Mat brought a goulash of young fish to the Orlando show. They were scrawny things and definitely not his best. But there were some jewels among them even back then. I remember we had Torazo, Oomo and Nogami attend the show that year. When they got to Mat's single tank of tosai they stopped....these are guys whose whole lives are centered on selecting from young fish. The three agreed that the best tosai among all at the show in the vats of over 15 dealers was a gin rin sanke in Mat's tank...and a likely female at that. A lot of the visitors to the show just walked past because they did not understand Matsunosuke genetics. The young fish are a fairly plain, almost dull orange... not the bright reds of colored-up tosai so often brought to shows. A year later, 8" tosai had become 20", big-boned bruisers. They weren't top award level fish, but folks got more than their money's worth.

Mike, Just read you comment about Oomo and Nogami as well as torazo. That's a really impressive statement. If my memory serves me, Nogami studied with Dianichi for about 15 years, Torazo is 3rd generation farmer to
improve his families' bloodlines and fujio, tho just learning has done very well with the showa line that he loves. His sense of humor and ability to fluently speak english makes him a good person to travel with.

If she is nearly as good as the pic Henry took, I'll be happy even if nothing else pans out. She lacks the classic step pattern that makes for awesome Kohaku, but there are enough indentations in her Hi plate to let us imagine an awesome Sanke. The shadows of Sumi make it seem that high quality Sumi will consolidate in all the right places...but will it? After the harvest we'll need to post update photos here for the comparison.

Henry: Yeah, that's a problem on this board. Your Showa's photo is posted in another thread, so it cannot be posted again through the attachment manager unless deleted from the old post. (I deleted the tosai photos from an old thread to re-post here because they were not important to that thread, but deleting your photo of the Sanke would have ruined another thread.) You can still post it by linking like on NI, but it is a hassle.